lished for the suggestions that I make. I conceive that the object of this motion is that this House should tell the Government and the world in no uncertain terms that we mean the command of the sea to be utilised to the full; that no more exceptions shall be made in individual cases; and that the blockade shall be applied rigorously to-day and in future, continuously and without intermission, until Germany admits defeat. (Ibid. p. 1294.)

Other members took views at variance with these expressed, but there was general agreement that some of the orders in council aimed to check trade with the Central Powers had failed.

Mr. Leverton Harris, who had been associated with the enforcement of so-called blockade, speaking of exports from neutrals to belligerents in the early days of the World War, said:

Those neutrals, having got rid of their own commodities, at once find a difficulty in providing for their own population, and consequently you find a very large increase of the imports into those neutral countries, which increase appears in the figures. That is one of the most difficult questions with which the Government have to deal. Here is a perfectly legitimate trade. Nobody can say to a neutral country, "You are not to sell your butter to Germany." We can not say to Denmark, "You are not to sell your butter to Germany." We buy butter ourselves very largely from Denmark, and Denmark is perfectly entitled to sell her butter. I do not know upon what principle of international law you can say to Denmark that she is not to buy nuts or other articles from foreign countries to produce margarine unless it was for consumption by her own people. That is the greatest difficulty which I think the problem presents at the present moment. (Ibid. p. 1305.)

Speaking in reply to various questions, the British Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Robert Cecil, on March 9, 1916, said:

Why not apply the doctrine of continuous voyage? We have applied it and worked it, and it is the very foundation of the whole of the action which we have taken. You can not blockade an enemy through a neutral country except by the operation of that doctrine. Our plan is to arrest all commerce of Germany, whether going in or coming out, whether it comes through a

RATIONING SYSTEM

29 neutral port or a German port; that is the whole object and the whole difficulty of our position. We have to discover for certain what is German and what is neutral commerce. I can not understand what more you can do by blockade. (Ibid. LXXX, 1815.)

The rationing system.-Mr. J. A. Salter, who had been closely related to the administration of the British and allied measures to control movements of vessels and goods toward the Central Powers in the World War, writing in 1920 said:

Germany's declaration, however, that after February, 1915, she would instruct her submarines to attack all merchant vessels in British waters, created an outburst of indignation in neutral countries, which Great Britain at once used to make the blockade comprehensive. In the reprisals order of March 11, 1915, she announced her intention to stop all goods of enemy origin or destination, and proceeded henceforth to stop supplies intended for Germany, without regard to the distinction of the earlier contraband rules or to the fact that the supplies might be consigned through a neutral port. Even this, however, was not enough. It was useless to prohibit every cargo of food destined for Germany, whether sent through contiguous neutral countries or not, if these neutral countries could themselves import freely for their own uses, and with the sufficiency so obtained, export their own produce to Germany by routes which the Allies could not control. This was the reason for the "rationing" policy, which was begun in 1915, and subsequently became the central feature in the whole blockade system. Detailed statistics were compiled as to the pre-war imports and consumption of all the neutral countries which had uncontrolled access to Germany; and only enough war, imports were allowed to give a bare sufficiency for internal consumption. The neutral countries were therefore compelled to adopt internal rationing measures, so that the system of official control extended over almost the whole world-neutral and belligerent alike. The actual privations of some of the neutrals were indeed much more serious than those in allied countries, no doubt partly because their export prohibitions were not sufficient to prevent supplies slipping across the border under the attraction of very high profits. (Allied Shipping Control, J. H. Salter, p. 100.)

Extension of doctrine, 1914-1918.-In the case of the Kim, the British prize court in 1915, relying upon early

cases, referred to the case of the Bermuda in which Chief Justice Chase said:

Neutrals may convey in neutral ships, from one neutral port to another, any goods, whether contraband of war or not, if intended for actual delivery at the port of destination, and to become part of the common stock of the country or of the port. (3 Wall. [1865], 514.)

In the decision in the case of the Kim, Sir Samuel Evans said:

As to the real destination of a cargo, one of the chief tests is whether it was consigned to the neutral port to be there delivered for the purpose of being imported into the common stock of the country. (The Kim L. R. [1915], p. 215.)

He also said:

It is essential to appreciate that the foundation of the law of contraband, and the reason for the doctrine of continuous voyage which has been grafted into it, is the right of a belligerent to prevent certain goods from reaching the country of the enemy for his military use.

*

And with the facilities of transportation by sea and by land which now exist, the right of a belligerent to capture conditional contraband would be of a very shadowy value if a mere consignment to a neutral port were sufficient to protect the goods. It appears also to be obvious that in these days of easy transit, if the doctrine of continuous voyage or continuous transportation is to hold at all, it must cover not only voyages from port to port, at sea, but also transport by land until the real, as distinguished from the merely ostensible, destination of the goods is reached. (Ibid.)

In this case the decision was upon the goods themselves, and states:

For the many reasons which I have given in the course of this judgment and which do not require recapitulation or even summary, I have come to the clear conclusion from the facts proved and the reasonable and, indeed, irresistible inferences from them, that the cargoes claimed by the shippers as belonging to them at the time of seizure were not on their way to Denmark to be incorporated into the common stock of that country by consumption or bona fide sale or otherwise; but, on the contrary, that they were on their way not only to German territory but also to

KIRKWALL PRACTICE

31

the German Government and their forces for naval and military use as their real ultimate destination.

To hold the contrary would be to allow one's eyes to be filled by the dust of theories and technicalities and to be blinded to the realities of the case. (Ibid.)

The Balto had in its cargo when on a voyage from American to Swedish ports in 1915 leather. The ship was "diverted to Kirkwall for examination." The British Government contended

that leather on its way to a neutral country, there to be made into boots and then to be taken to an enemy country, is liable to condemnation as contraband;

while for the owners it was maintained that—

The doctrine of continuous voyage applies only to goods which in their actual state at the time of capture are on the way to the enemy. Where the destination is a neutral port, the subsequent transportation after manufacture is permitted. There must be a preconceived plan or scheme to send the goods to a hostile destination, and that plan must be in operation when the goods are siezed. There is absolutely no proof of any such intention in this case. Even if there was such an intention, the right of the belligerent is not to seize the leather on its way to the factory, but to stop the boots on the way from Sweden to Germany. (L. R. [1917], p. 79.)

The president of the prize court said:

One of the tests applied was whether the goods imported were intended to become part of the common stock of the neutral country into which they were first brought. In my view the notion that leather, imported into a neutral country for the express purpose of being at once turned into boots for the enemy forces, be comes incorporated in the common stock of the neutral country is illusory. Instances can be given and multiplied which appear to reduce to an absurdity the argument that if work is done in the neutral country upon goods which are intended ultimately for the enemy, that circumstance of necessity puts an end to their contraband character, and prevents their being confiscable according to the doctrine of continuous voyage.

It may be well to give a few instances, by way of illustration, relating both to conditional and absolute contraband.

Suppose coffee beans and cocoa beans were imported into a neutral country with the object of their being converted into

coffee or cocoa to be sent on to the enemy, would the fact that the coffee beans were ground into coffee, or the cocoa beans were ground and mixed with sugar to make cocoa in the neutral country, be enough to render those goods immune from capture if they would be capturable as coffee or cocoa foodstuffs when afloat? Again, assume that cloth of an inappropriate hue, but intended for the enemy forces, was imported into a neutral country, and there dyed into the desired colour for the enemy forces; or that steel helmets were so imported, and there painted with the Germany colour, or fitted with the regulation German army or regimental marks, would a belligerent lose the right to seize them at sea when and because they were not so dyed, painted, or fitted? To take a couple more instances. It is quite possible that the metal parts of rifles for the enemy army might be imported into a Scandinavian country in a complete state; and that the butt ends or timber parts were intended to be affixed in such country because timber was plentiful there, or for some other reason good or ostensible. Would the metal rifles be free from capture by a belligerent because they were to be so completed in the neutral country before being sent on to the enemy? If a field gun was imported, would it be protected from seizure because it would, in fact, be mounted upon its appropriate carriage before being exported from a neutral country to the enemy's front?

The court could not give affirmative answers to such questions as these unless it cut itself adrift from the safe anchor of common sense. (Ibid.)

The decision in the case of the Bonna in 1918 governed a number of other cases. The Bonna, a neutral vessel, was seized on its way from the Dutch East Indies to Scandinavian ports and had on board coconut oil which was used in Sweden in the manufacture of margarine. The case was presented as follows:

Mr. Leslie Scott, K. C., M. P., for the claimants: Apart from the contention based on the export of butter, there is no case to answer. There is no authority that supports this contention. The case nearest in point is the Balto, in which it was held that leather destined to be made into boots for the Germay Army could be stopped on its way to a Swedish boot factory. That is a very different case. There is no support in international law for the proposition that materials used in manufacture are confiscable when the products of the manufacture are to be consumed in the country into which they are imported, because their consumption will enable other people to export a totally different